Yeah, yeah. This is a travel blog, not a medical one. But how can I not report on the traumatic twist to the end of my Indonesia adventure?
I confess to feeling a bit smug about how well I had dodged any health problems on the trip. I caught no colds, let alone Covid (despite carrying two doses of Paxlovid along with us). I suffered no tummy trouble, despite breaking various rules for eating in the developing world.
My comeuppance came Wednesday evening, when Steve and I were Zooming with our kids in Reno, and the back of my right heel began itching. Idly scratching it, I slowly became aware something was there that did not feel like an insect bite. By the time we signed off, I had identified some distinct and creepy contours.
“Quick!” I ordered Steve. “You have to check my heel. I think there’s something awful going on.”
Steve is normally quick to dismiss overheated fears, but once he saw what I was feeling, he declared that it did indeed look a lot like the killer funguses on “The Last of Us.” This is what he captured with my iPhone.
By this point it was after 8 at night, and I was fairly sure I was not harboring a fungus that would turn me into a homicidal zombie before morning. Still, to avoid waking up with Ripley-esque nightmares (and to calm the itching), I drugged myself with a Benadryl. Thursday morning as soon as my dermatologist’s office opened, I called and begged to be shoehorned into my doctor’s busy schedule. The scheduler regretfully turned me down, so I instead made an appointment at the USCD urgent care center nearest me. At 10 am I checked in, and within 45 minutes a jaunty young doctor strode in my exam room.
“I hope it’s cutaneous larva migrans,” he exclaimed. “Haven’t seen one of those in years!”
I learned he had grown up in Sri Lanka, where parasitic infections are commonplace. He immediately recongized that my squiggly red line signaled the presence of a… worm.
“EEEEEWWWWW!!!!” I wailed.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “It won’t kill you. There’s a medicine for it.” He couldn’t resist adding, “It’s really creepy when you can feel them moving.”
I took the deworming medicine Thursday and Friday, so I can hope that my worm is now in the process of dying, if not already dead. Google has also informed me that this particular type of hookworm is pretty benign. Apparently they lack the ability to get below the skin and invade your internal organs. They just kind of get stuck (and slough off? I promise NOT to write any posts about that.)
I’m less clear on how my wormy fellow traveler got into my heel, though I have a strong suspicion. I failed to pack a pair of sturdy, long stockings for the trip. (Hey, it’s summer in the tropics!) So when we trekked with the orangutans in that rainforest in Sumatra, I was wearing only flimsy low-cut socks. That’s how the leech (leeches?) got to me. And I’m guessing the hookworm larva seized its opportunity there too.
I wouldn’t bet that I will never again hike in a tropical rainforest. But consider this is a public vow: I will NEVER again fail to pack at least one pair of long socks.
At home and abroad 